Good Reads and LibraryThing are both sites I've used before, and I'm a huge fan. We just got Encore for our catalog, so I'm super hopeful that we can add video and audio reviews and integrate LibraryThing more into our ILS. West Bloomfield rocks!
Thanks for the Shelfari recommendation.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Thing 15: Instant Messaging
I really dislike IM. Ok, I said it. I guess I like written communication to be just a tad slower to allow for some thoughtful contemplation and well-reasoned response time. I can use verbal communication for quick off the cuff thinking, but I can't quite wrap my brain around IM because it seems so disjointed and incomplete to me. I know I feel the same about Twitter and texting, so it's my inner Luddite talking. I prefer text to be complete sentences and in paragraph form, ideally, so I can savor the message.
Another frustrating thing is all the different protocols! With email, you don't need to worry what someone's software is. Thanks for the net lingo--it was super helpful.
Links to remember:
AIM, Yahoo, Jabber, GoogleTalk, and more - and MEEBO (www.meebo.com)
Another frustrating thing is all the different protocols! With email, you don't need to worry what someone's software is. Thanks for the net lingo--it was super helpful.
Links to remember:
AIM, Yahoo, Jabber, GoogleTalk, and more - and MEEBO (www.meebo.com)
Thing 16: Podcasts
My favorite was Library Spot podcasts. The teen webcasts at Boulder PL were inspiring.
Found a fun one: Children's Book and Radio podcasts.
Wow! This has such exciting possibilities for booktalks to our patrons via our web site. Just One More Book came up when I did a google search for "Children's Literature Podcasts".
I'm curious about copyright. Storynory and other read-aloud sites are careful to use folktales and other public domain or original works. What do we need to know about reading aloud stories in a podcast format in terms of copyright?
Thing 17: Webinars
Does anyone know when ALSC will have an updated list of fall webinars? I've tried some Web Junction before, and think they have good stuff. We're rapidly losing our library system CE opportunities, so I'm desperate for some alternatives. CCBC was a particularly fantastic tip--thanks!
Both SLJ and Booklist do have great webinars and I've suggested that my staff use them for ideas about collection development.
Are archived webinars often available for free?
Recommended links I wish to remember from this week:
Nebraska Public Libraries offers a plethora of archived webinars for free. TechSoup (technology website for non-profits) offers some great webinars. And the College of DuPage is very well-known for their thought-provoking webinars.
Thanks to Barb for recommending InfoPeople.
Both SLJ and Booklist do have great webinars and I've suggested that my staff use them for ideas about collection development.
Are archived webinars often available for free?
Recommended links I wish to remember from this week:
Nebraska Public Libraries offers a plethora of archived webinars for free. TechSoup (technology website for non-profits) offers some great webinars. And the College of DuPage is very well-known for their thought-provoking webinars.
Thanks to Barb for recommending InfoPeople.
Thing 19: Book Trailers
Scholastic always seems to have fantastic ways of getting kids excited about books. I love their book trailers! I think I might be able to use these during book talk presentations at schools if I can get a projector ahead of time...
Movies for Literacy was much more bare bones and doesn't have the flash, but I liked the index of titles to choose from. These give me ideas for more homegrown type book trailers that we could do from the library.
I'm going to see if my staff would like to put together a trailer together and I'll post the directions that Kelly gave us for us to remember (since they are reading this blog).
21 Things: Book Trailers (thanks, Kelly!)
Movies for Literacy was much more bare bones and doesn't have the flash, but I liked the index of titles to choose from. These give me ideas for more homegrown type book trailers that we could do from the library.
I'm going to see if my staff would like to put together a trailer together and I'll post the directions that Kelly gave us for us to remember (since they are reading this blog).
21 Things: Book Trailers (thanks, Kelly!)
First decide how you are going to put your images together. If you have a Mac, you can use iMovie, but if you need free software, here are a couple of good choices:
If you don't want to download any software, you can also use, Animoto or Imagechef to create an book trailer.
Now that you've chosen a platform, spend some time playing around so you get an idea of how you can add, delete, and manipulate images. Once you feel comfortable, it's time to find the images you want to use to create your book trailers. Here are some places you can find royalty free images online:
- Fotolia
Once you've decided on what images to use, go ahead and save them to your hard drive in your pictures folder. Book trailers can last anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes. Now import your images into your selected editing program. Use the video effects and transitions available to make your still images more interesting.
When you are satisfied with your images, you can go ahead and add music. Here are some sites with royalty free music.
- ccMixter
Thing 20: GoogleDocs, Zoho Writer, Remember the Milk
I've been opening up other people's GoogleDocs that they have been sending to me for a while now and I just assumed they were standard word processing docs. After experimenting, I'm starting to realize what cool things these are. My daughter wrote a script with a friend online for a school project, and I'm anxious to collaborate more with colleagues in the same way. The excel spreadsheet portion really intrigues me but I'm not sure yet how I would use it. Maybe for recording reference transaction statistics across departments? The templates in GoogleDocs are free and could be helpful for patrons who are new at typing resumes.
Zoho looks like I might use it to format my blog posts better, or to quickly change a document into .pdf format. It's sort of like the old text only RTF programs--can be converted to other formats, easy to access from any computer, and can be quickly shared. Edesk Online is also interesting to play with.
I really liked Kelly's recommended article and I want to spend significantly more time playing with all of these choices.
Remember the Milk. Wikipedia has a whole list of products that can be integrated with this, and I pasted it here so that I would remember all of the other new products I still need to try!
Zoho looks like I might use it to format my blog posts better, or to quickly change a document into .pdf format. It's sort of like the old text only RTF programs--can be converted to other formats, easy to access from any computer, and can be quickly shared. Edesk Online is also interesting to play with.
I really liked Kelly's recommended article and I want to spend significantly more time playing with all of these choices.
Remember the Milk. Wikipedia has a whole list of products that can be integrated with this, and I pasted it here so that I would remember all of the other new products I still need to try!
Remember the Milk offers integration with various other products and services:
- iGoogle: the user-designed Google homepage, where you can choose and organise content in the form of 'gadgets'. A Remember The Milk gadget can be added to one's iGoogle homepage. This gadget includes the capacity to add, edit, postpone and check off tasks.
- Google Calendar: Remember the Milk can be added to the Google Calendar online application to permit users to access their Remember the Milk account from within Google Calendar.
- Netvibes, a personalized start page. Remember The Milk has created a widget for Netvibes similar to the one offered for iGoogle. It is available from the Netvibes Ecosystem site.
- Twitter, a microblogging service. Users can add RTM's Twitter account to their watch list, then they can send direct messages and have the task added.
- Remember the Milk can send alerts to instant messaging accounts, email addresses, and mobile devices (via text messages)[citation needed].
- Tasque, an open source GNOME task management client. It has a minimalist GUI and one click linking to a single RTM account.
- Astrid, an open source Android task management client. It supports two-way synchronization between an RTM account and the application task list.
- Microsoft Outlook, personal information manager from Microsoft. Two-way synchronization of tasks is done by SprinxCRM OutlookSync for Remember The Milk[1] ( as of 2010/8 part of SprinxCRM UniversalSync). It includes support for RTM’s smart lists, which get added to Outlook as categories.
Thing 21: Online Games
One thing I've noticed about online games is how long kids stick with their favorites. They will come into the library and play the same game every day after school for weeks and weeks. It's got a very interesting real-world social element, too, which is why we need more spaces in libraries for group gaming. My reviews of some gaming sites:
1. Fun Brain. This used to have fewer ads and had more educational content at one time. The math arcade style games are still fun, but beyond Mad Libs, there isn't much for reading comprehension games. The best part of Fun Brain now is that it has a direct link to one of my all-time favorites: Poptropica.com!
2. Poptropica. I love the diversity of the avatar characters, the fun quests, and the fact that it keeps growing with new islands. Like all of the role-playing games these days, however, it tends to be better if you subscribe and pay for the privilege, which is a shame. Still, the free parts are pretty good and I love the adventuresome atmosphere.
3. Nick Jr. Sweet games with favorite TV characters as the stars--preschool gold. I miss Nick Magazine.
4. PBS Kids or PBS Kids Go! Again, really nice stuff for preschoolers. We link directly to Sesame Street on our web site, and it's such a tried and true favorite. Nobody tops Sesame Street for PreK learning.
5. Whyville. For all those 8-12 year old tweens who are begging to get on facebook. This might hold their attention for a while at least until they are chomping at the bit to play in the big leagues. It's a good safe start.
6. Neopets. I like Webkinz better, personally, but for collectors and fans this is a cute site.
7. Club Penguin. I have a soft spot in my heart for Club Penguin. Like some of the other sites, subscription access is better, but this has a ton of stuff for free that the others don't offer. There is some merchandising, of course, but not as much as Neopets or WebKinz. I just think the penguins and their houses are adorable and I'd like to do a Club Penguin Party at the library sometime this winter.
1. Fun Brain. This used to have fewer ads and had more educational content at one time. The math arcade style games are still fun, but beyond Mad Libs, there isn't much for reading comprehension games. The best part of Fun Brain now is that it has a direct link to one of my all-time favorites: Poptropica.com!
2. Poptropica. I love the diversity of the avatar characters, the fun quests, and the fact that it keeps growing with new islands. Like all of the role-playing games these days, however, it tends to be better if you subscribe and pay for the privilege, which is a shame. Still, the free parts are pretty good and I love the adventuresome atmosphere.
3. Nick Jr. Sweet games with favorite TV characters as the stars--preschool gold. I miss Nick Magazine.
4. PBS Kids or PBS Kids Go! Again, really nice stuff for preschoolers. We link directly to Sesame Street on our web site, and it's such a tried and true favorite. Nobody tops Sesame Street for PreK learning.
5. Whyville. For all those 8-12 year old tweens who are begging to get on facebook. This might hold their attention for a while at least until they are chomping at the bit to play in the big leagues. It's a good safe start.
6. Neopets. I like Webkinz better, personally, but for collectors and fans this is a cute site.
7. Club Penguin. I have a soft spot in my heart for Club Penguin. Like some of the other sites, subscription access is better, but this has a ton of stuff for free that the others don't offer. There is some merchandising, of course, but not as much as Neopets or WebKinz. I just think the penguins and their houses are adorable and I'd like to do a Club Penguin Party at the library sometime this winter.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Back in the Saddle
I'm back in the saddle with 21 Things! It's sort of like finals week, but I'm learning a lot. It was hard for me to do this program during summer reading, so I'm hoping it is offered again in the fall.
After playing with the online games, I'd like to do a Club Penguin program this winter. I also want to learn more about Podcasts for our web site and Webinars for staff development.
After playing with the online games, I'd like to do a Club Penguin program this winter. I also want to learn more about Podcasts for our web site and Webinars for staff development.
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